Ja-red

As far as election years go, 2016 feels different, to say the least. But the bulk of what I read in the papers and online is sensationalist and not that useful to anyone. Sure, a presidential election is important, but the reams of paper and servers of “information” devoted to it are not commensurate. Twenty-four hour news is a pox. We don’t need or deserve twenty-four hours of news. We certainly don’t know what to do with it. And I don’t know if things are worse now than in previous eras, but confirmation bias is as encouraged as ever these days and most “news” or (vomit) “content” is aimed to make you feel what you already feel, just harder. Plus you choose what news or analysis to consume, from a wide array of choices, and if you’re like me, you choose to get it from places that congratulate you on feeling the thing you already feel.

A side point on whether things are worse today than they were on the yesterday or yesteryear of your choice: I tend to think things are not worse as I’m not optimistic or pessimistic about mankind’s journey; I don’t think we’re “going to hell in a handbasket.” I think hell is already here on earth, as is heaven, and things will always be both wonderful and terrible, and to a large part our experience is determined by which we choose to focus on.

There’s my preface for delving into how I’ll vote in the US presidential election in November, and why I’ll vote that way. I wrote that preface to warm up my own brain and to hopefully offer some insight into my decision making process. My hope is that if I’m as honest and as clear as I can be, you can decide whether to think further about what I’ve written or dismiss it out of hand as the scribbling of a moron. Or maybe some combination of the two. It’s up to you.

I’ll also say that I’m almost a single-issue voter. I’m not, but my thinking about government and elected officials and what their purposes are begins and ends with how they approach health care. My thinking certainly visits all the other issues along the way (or a few of them anyway; I don’t have to have an opinion on everything as I’m not running and never will run for president) but number one among all the issues for me is health care. My reason for that is that I believe that you can’t really effect positive change in any other area if your body (or your child’s body, or your partner’s body) is sick or not working. Nor can you effect change if you’re struggling to pay for - or even get – vital medicine for yourself or a family member. Nor, again, can you effect change in areas you care about if you’re in significant debt for medical care you’ve already received. You can even have a hard time effecting change in the political issues you care about if you merely live with the specter of not being able to access or pay for medical care for yourself or your family. I, and so many millions of Americans, speak from experience. Your health sits near the bottom of the pyramid of your hierarchy of needs, according to psychologist Abraham Maslow. Air, water, food, clothing and shelter are the only things below it, but we needed those things before we ever invented government, so physical health is where I start thinking politically. I wouldn’t fault anyone for starting lower on the pyramid with things like the climate, or housing for those who don’t have it, but I believe that it’s difficult for a society to care about those things for others when they are not physically healthy themselves. You put on your own oxygen mask first, so to speak.

For some time now, there have been two major political parties in the United States. You don’t have to like it (I don’t) but that’s how it is. You can try to change it (I do) but that’s how it is, right now. I’m not saying you have to vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in November; you don’t. You can vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or you can write in Channing Tatum. Some people will tell you a vote for Jill Stein would be a vote for Donald Trump. It isn’t; it’s a vote for Jill Stein. Same with Johnson and Trump. Who am I to tell you how to vote? Who is anybody? The best I can do is tell you how I’m voting and why. It so happens I’ll vote for Hillary Clinton in November. I’ll do so because I consider her plans for health care superior to those of Donald Trump. Almost certainly due to pressure from Bernie Sanders, the guy I voted for in the primary, Hillary says she’ll reintroduce the “public option,” a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies within the United States. She’d also reduce the Medicare enrollment age to 55, which is good because… most people live well past 55. She’d also “incentivize” the states that haven’t yet to expand Medicaid. That’s vague but she can either fill in the details at some point or not; the states that didn’t initially expand Medicaid when the Affordable Care Act rolled out have been doing so one by one anyway. Even Louisiana just expanded Medicaid. Poor people deserve quality health care, do they not? Clinton’s plan would appear to acknowledge this.

Trump’s health care proposals, on the other hand, literally include HSAs or “health savings accounts.” In 2016. He says he isn’t a fan of George W. Bush, but that’s a sweet nod to him right there. Fun fact: Bush signed Health Savings Accounts into law in 2003, the same year he invaded Iraq. (“Hmm, rather than save for my kids’ college, or retirement, I’ll take advantage of tax incentives to save for the… dialysis I might one day need?”)  Man, Bush was not a good President in at least 75 different ways.

To wrap up my thoughts on health care: we’re all born rotting. Our bodies will fail, by design, at one point or another. That’s not something to be ashamed of and it’s not something to be penalized for, especially in the United States of America, in 2016. Even if you’re a greedy captain of industry, you can make more widgets and be in business for longer if your workers are healthy. And if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you can have the freedom to invent the new Google or Tesla or whatever if you’re not bound to work for the above widget maker via an employer-provided health care plan.

And to put a final, finer point on it, Americans kill themselves because of medical debt. When I tell that to people in the UK where I’ve lived for work for the last two years, they are understandably aghast.

None of this changes the fact that a single-payer health care system, a la Britain’s NHS, would be vastly superior to Obamacare, even with Clinton’s proposals. But that’s not what this particular piece is about. It’s about who I’m voting for and why. And Clinton’s plans for healthcare are much better than Trump’s.

One other thing I’d like to remind people is that the next president could nominate up to four Supreme Court Justices. I know that’s not a sexy issue and it doesn’t tend to dominate the headlines, but it really, really should. Whatever issues you’re passionate about (voting rights, access to abortion, campaign finance, health care, etc.) the Supreme Court wreaks massive influence on them all. The Court is composed of a mere (usually) nine people who together decide things like whether you should be able to vote in Alabama if you’re black or if you should have to drive 300 miles to get an abortion if you’ve been raped. So in the coming weeks and months you have to decide if you’d like Hillary Clinton to nominate the people who make those decisions for you or if you’d prefer Donald Trump to do that. To illustrate, Donald Trump could substantively influence critical decisions your granddaughter has to make about her reproductive health care, long after you’re dead. And that’s not a silly thought exercise, that’s an elementary understanding of how the Supreme Court, whose Justices are appointed for life, shapes American lives through law.

So my hope in writing all this is that somebody might read it and move past the cult of personality nonsense that makes up the bulk of election “news” and think about what matters to them, on an issue-by-issue basis and vote based on that.

Finally, I’m massively encouraged by Sanders supporters across the U.S. To them I say “Keep on truckin.’” I am utterly blown away by the number of people in this country who want single payer health care, affordable housing, college without debt, Wall Street reform, and everything else. I only want all that stuff more the older I get and I’ll continue to vote for it and volunteer for campaigns that are working towards it. And we’ll need energized citizens young and old to counter and defeat whatever it is Trump is brewing. Because although he won’t win the election, his support and his fans won’t magically evaporate when he loses. What will they do? I’m guessing they’ll serve as the victims of the next multi-level marketing scheme he cooks up with Roger Ailes.  That’s what his campaign seems to me to be; a rehearsal of sorts, that or he views the Americans who support him as “Glengarry leads” he’s grooming or paving a deeper access path to for some godless purpose. He doesn’t seem to want to be President anyway. I guess that’s one thing he and I have in common.

To wrap this burrito up:

1. Consider that people’s health affects their ability to make any/all other changes. Maybe look at the issues you care most about through that lens for a minute.

2. Think about who you’d like to nominate four Supreme Court justices. Remember that you’ll live with the consequences for longer than two presidential terms.

3. Don’t be discouraged; stay engaged and involved, especially on the local level.

4. Tell me to stick this incredibly long post up my ass.

5. Vote.

Waves , Kojima Island ,1890